Nigeria: ‘Cyberharam': Can Nigeria Prepare For The Next Generation Of Terrorists?

The capacity to inflict serious damage from cyber space is not
just a marketing gimmick used by security vendors to promote their
business, but has now become a well-established trend with
occurrences making headlines across the globe.

In tackling the challenges posed by cyber threats, one top
consideration is to identify our critical infrastructure and assess
the risks to these systems so as to identify threats and
vulnerabilities. Examples of our critical infrastructure include
those supporting our financial and telecommunication systems,
systems hosting classified national security information amongst
others. On conclusion of the assessment, a long term roadmap that
will guide investments in securing our infrastructure should be
prepared.

Bombs here, bombs there. This was the case in Nigeria a short
while ago. Many could not believe that such a thing could happen in
a nation where everyone appeared to be peace-loving and hospitable.
It was unheard of that a Nigerian will wrap himself or herself with
a bomb and commit suicide in an attempt to kill other people. The
worst we imagined at that time was economic instability as a result
of corruption or clashes based on religious doctrines. Even the
Nigerian President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, in July 2014 admitted
that the intensity of the Boko Haram crisis in the North East
caught the government and the security agencies unaware. The
unfortunate reality is that there is a new type of terror that is
brewing and evolving at an alarming speed all around the world;
this threat is more sophisticated and can cause exponentially more
damage than Boko Haram. This new generation of terrorism may not be
in close combat but will be in cyber space. A director of the
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in 2013 said he expects cyber
threats to surpass the terrorism threat that nations will face in
the years to come.

The capacity to inflict serious damage from cyber space is not
just a marketing gimmick used by security vendors to promote their
business, but has now become a well-established trend with
occurrences making headlines across the globe. Of worthy mention is
the attack that destroyed centrifuges at an Iranian nuclear
facility; we can also recall the Sony Pictures Entertainment hack
late last year. Even in Nigeria, it was reported that the website
of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was hacked
on the day of the 2015 presidential election. These forms of
attacks in cyber space, which may be termed "cyber war",
range from simple probes, website defacement, denial of service and
espionage, to wide-scale terrorism.

We are seeing significant interest by terrorist organizations in
leveraging cyber capabilities to further their cause. For example,
the Boko Haram sect gets media attention by leveraging social
media. In 2013, the Syrian Electronic Army (SEA) hacked the Twitter
account of a news agency and falsely claimed the White House had
been bombed and President Barack Obama was injured. This led to a
US$136.5 billion dip on the S&P 500 index that same day. If
terrorists are choosing to dedicate so much resources into
advancing their knowledge of cyber security, why then should our
law-enforcement agents be caught unawares and keep playing catch
up?

The same way many never saw Boko Haram coming 15 years ago, we
may also be blindsided to the concept of cyber-terrorism on the
Nigerian infrastructure. Many mistakes of the past have been laced
with statements assuming that such problems can only happen in the
western world. For instance, I recently facilitated a
cyber-security forum for c-level executives in West Africa where we
discussed the report of the possibility to hack into a plane's
control system via the in-flight Wi-Fi system. After much
deliberation, one of the participants remarked, "thank God we
don't yet have Wi-Fi in our domestic planes." I think the
emerging threats should not be easily dismissed with such
statements. Cyber terrorism knows no borders. The internet,
although very good, may be used as a recruitment tool for
terrorists worldwide as has been alleged of ISIS and an evolving
weapon in the global distribution of chaos.

Cyber security has now become a key topic amongst government
policy makers worldwide and from all indications, it will be a key
topic till the end of time. The advent of cyber as a weapon of
warfare is rapidly gaining momentum and Nigeria is not immune to
such threats. It is only a matter of time before it becomes full
blown. In 2012, it was reported that there was a 60% increase in
the attacks on Nigerian government websites. We cannot control when
the threat will occur but we can control our response to it. We
have ample time now to invest massively in cyber-capacity
development and embark on deliberate media strategies.

We are relatively in a time of national Cyber-Peace now and as I
recall from an old adage, 'a soldier prepares for war in time
of peace'. Peace should not be a factor to cost us our
strength; peace is a time when development and massive investment
in cyber security and cyber related matters should become paramount
issues. As of today, it is unbelievable that only one tertiary
institution in Nigeria currently administers cyber security as a
course of study. A large proportion of Nigerian PhD holders in
Computer Science related courses are not Cyber Security experts.
The expertise is lacking and hence a defence strategy cannot work
with the status-quo.

It is only a vision of cyber-war and cyber-peace that will make
the United States embark on a Cambridge Vs. Cambridge cyber
challenge; a new competition geared at improving cyber security
initiatives between MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts and Cambridge
University in England. Also a cyber-security fellowship was
initiated to aid knowledge transfer between the United States (US)
and the United Kingdom (UK). The US Government is pitching
$14Billion in cyber security spending for fiscal year 2016 across
all its agencies. This budget keeps increasing year after year.
Investment strides like this can only be done because of a high
probability of an impending global catastrophe that can come as a
result of cyber-terrorism. Nigeria has to take charge and make
significant investments in cyber security capability so as to
adequately defend the nation against cyber-attacks.

In this war, the possibility for success is still a moving
target as both heroes and villains are learning and seeking out new
ways to defend and attack respectively. Today's defence or
better said; this second's defence is the next second's
weakness. How can we play in such a field where the weapons and the
yardstick of success change on a per second basis? How do we fight
a war that will not be limited to a section of the country but has
the potential to undermine even the high and mighty in every nook
and cranny?

My experience with performing ethical hacking and cyber security
related assignments across 16 countries has put me in a better
position to appreciate the words of the former FBI director, Robert
Mueller, who said, "There are only two types of companies:
Those that have been hacked, and those that will be." I desire
that all organisations in Nigeria wake up to this new reality. I
was speaking at a cyber-security conference in Washington DC
recently and did not hesitate to tell the bankers that they appear
to focus more on credit risk, market risk, and liquidity risk
without appropriately considering cyber risk. Whilst the
traditional risk management portfolio is great, cyber-risk has the
immense power to wipe out an organisation's shareholder value
faster than the combination of these other risks. The role of
governments cannot be overemphasized in tackling cyber threats, it
should no longer be a backburner idea which should be handled only
by the Ministry of Science and Technology or the office of the
National Security Adviser. It is a frontline issue that could
result in cascading economic catastrophes.

In tackling the challenges posed by cyber threats, one top
consideration is to identify our critical infrastructure and assess
the risks to these systems so as to identify threats and
vulnerabilities. Examples of our critical infrastructure include
those supporting our financial and telecommunication systems,
systems hosting classified national security information amongst
others. On conclusion of the assessment, a long term roadmap that
will guide investments in securing our infrastructure should be
prepared.

As a nation, we need to invest massively in cyber-capacity
development with emphasis on law enforcement agencies, policy
framework developers, the judiciary and both the state and federal
legislative arms of government. All routes to cyber capacity must
be taken. Other training initiatives could include wide-scale
Federal Government and private sector backed scholarships for
students with interest in cyber security. A next step could then be
inculcation of cyber security as a discipline of study in Nigerian
Universities. We need to win the future and that can only be
achieved by educating the present. The enactment into law of the
Cybercrime bill is a step in the right direction and the Nigerian
government has to be lauded for that achievement. The incoming
National Assembly and President should work together for a flexible
and evolving budget that caters to the demands of cyber security.
Research and development in cyber security must become fluid and
must provide for the future cyber threats.

The establishment of a joint task force for cyber security and
building of a National Cyber Command Center that will be the go-to
center for cyber security in Nigeria and will facilitate Cyber
intelligence integration for all governmental parastatals and other
institutions in Nigeria. Collaboration among stakeholders and
cyber-intelligence sharing is key to having a united front against
cyber terrorism. During our counter strikes against Boko Haram, it
was reported that at our time of need, countries were not willing
to sell weapons to cater for our needs. It makes no sense for us to
allow such to repeat itself. We have to be prepared and Nigerians
can do it.

It is difficult to estimate the level of damage a catastrophic
event such as a successful cyber-attack could inflict on the future
of Nigeria but I am not ready to find out and I hope Nigerians are
not eager to find that out either. This is why it makes logical
sense to be prepared beyond Sambisa and Shekau, and look forward to
successfully defending our national infrastructure from
cyber-terrorism. In conclusion, I would like to answer the question
posed by the title of this article. Is Nigeria prepared for the
next generation of terrorism? No we are not, but YES WE CAN BE.

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